Damn, that was one hell of a dick move. First an absolutely horrendous choice offered by the producers - give you and the person you chose the reward, or give it to the 4 losers? It’d be one thing if it was just Brenda sacrificing her own reward, but sacrificing Dawn’s truly made that a conundrum. And (as turns out) giving it to the 4 actually put the target on Brenda’s back. And then a dick move (but correct move) on the part of Dawn/Cochran/Sherri by voting her out.
Also, I’m pretty sure the lesson of this season is DON’T TRUST DAWN!
I said last week that Cochran had the best chance with Brenda behind, and it seems the people in the game agreed with me. Sherri and Eddie really are just along for the ride and are only there by dint of coat-tail riding; both were on the chopping block and lucked out by timing (Sherri due to the merge, Eddie due to the favorites doing blindsides). I still don’t think Erik has a clue, though I think his chances improved given how this episode went down. I think Dawn can kiss the million dollars goodbye, she’s just backstabbed and betrayed too many people.
Eddie or Erik could easily win though if they’re paired with Cochran/Dawn or Dawn/Sherri and make the argument that they didn’t backstab anyone and played the game honestly.
Definitely think someone’s gonna quit or leave for medical reasons… don’t usually have Jeff hanging out at camp in the twilight.
It has been a very interesting season in terms of the metagame, as the obvious plan once the merge occurs is to vote out whichever player seems most likely to win (not “challenge threat” as most players assume). Yet the majority alliance usually has a leader in the driver’s seat who makes it to the end and wins by a decent margin, because people become loathe to cross their friends. This time the favorites, likely due to their experience and also the personalities selected, has been just going along and voting out the player most likely to win week after week, with no clear-cut leader.
It’s remarkable that she hasn’t been booted already since she’s proven that you can’t trust her. And she goes on and on about how she’s “playing for myself” this time which, granted, should be every player’s strategy, but the way she emphasizes that every chance she gets should be a big warning to anyone in alliance with her.
I hope Cochran is aware enough to realize he is now a big target. The next TC should be very interesting, depending on what happens beforehand wrt the event in the previews.
If I was on Survivor I wonder if they would let my Dog come out there for the family show? He would have been more help in that challenge than a lot of their family members. He could have been a counter weight holding on with his teeth. And he could have brought back the bolos if I had any misses.
True, but you could say the same for Natalie White (who won over Russell in his first season) and Sandra (in Heroes vs. Villains). I think the Sandra example is a good analogy because she won in a season like this one where there were a bunch of good players and they all ended up taking each other out. On the other hand, I doubt they jury would be as butthurt as the two juries in Russell’s seasons.
If Cochran and Dawn are both in the final three, I’d like to see Cochran take full ownership of that move at the final tribal council. As in “I knew my head was going to on the block next time if we voted out Eddie, so what did you expect me to do? Dawn was the one who really stabbed you in the back, Brenda.”
And that’s a pretty good argument for why Cochran didn’t try to bring Eddie in on the plan. At first I was thinking that once he’d gotten Sherri on board with voting out Brenda he only needed Eddie’s vote to make it happen.
I confess to being initially a bit bemused when Cochran talked to Dawn as well, but in retrospect it was a very good, even brilliant, move. He denied Eddie any opportunity to claim that he’d at least made a smart late-game move, and also exposed Dawn’s duplicity.
Well played, Cochran. He eviscerated the credibility of two opponents in one fell swoop. I hope he wins.
So I think that Cochrane/Dawn/Sherri are pretty inseparable right now, and will all choose to go to the final with each other. But who does Eddie or Erik kick out? I have to think that either of them would be voting out Cochrane should they win final immunity. That final vote is tough to predict, and I’m surprised it doesn’t come down to a 2-2 vote more often.
It is interesting that when he talks about what’s going to happen, he writes it like he wrote it just after the episode ended and doesn’t know what the future holds. For instance he says:
“The only person who I don’t think can win in any given scenario is Sherri. Sorry Sherri, it’s not personal. I just don’t see it happening at this point. Everybody else has a shot depending on which people end up in the final!”
I’d be pretty surprised if either (a) no one looks at the votes before the finale is aired, and (b) Jeff isn’t one of those who knows who the winner is. He probably rehearses reading the votes before the finale begins. We certainly know that someone takes the votes at each Tribal and reorders them for Jeff to count, just to keep the suspense as high as possible.